Features

The Coachella Valley Radio Control Club has come a long way from a loosely knit group of model airplane enthusiasts to an organization of 150 members with a professional flying field.
One of the oldest organizations in the Coachella Valley, it started with a group of weekend pilots in 1938, stopped during WWII and picked up again after the war. Flying fields were empty lots, ranch fields or any place with a level site away from houses or power lines. By 1999 Dan Metz, then president, was anxious to find a permanent “airport” as the gypsy fliers had shared their hobby on more than a dozen sites.

Lloyd Lehn retired 12 years ago, after a 35-year career as a mechanical/manufacturing engineer with the Department of Defense. But his lifelong love of detangling mechanical problems didn’t stop there.

Demographics, unlike statistics, don’t lie. In Howard County, more than one out of every five residents will be over 65 in two decades.
In the meantime, two members of the club are helping the county plan for the rest. Phyllis Madachy, 69, is the new director of the Howard County Department of Citizen Services, and Starr Sowers, 65, has been named to head the county’s Office on Aging, which is part of the department.

Whether they’re childless by choice or by chance, America’s 15 million baby boomers who have no children are reflecting on their past, their present and, warily, a future that might not include anyone to care for them.

I first met Diana von Welanetz Wentworth a few years ago when she was a celebrity chef demonstrator at the Food + Wine Festival Palm Desert. She was then living in Orange County, and as a fellow member of Les Dames d’Escoffier International (LDEI), our local chapter rallied around to support her demo at the event.

Not long ago, Arlington County Adult Protective Services received a call from friends of an older woman. They were concerned about her physical and mental decline, and about suspicious behavior associated with a woman she recently met at a restaurant.

A group of Howard County older adults have joined together in the belief that it takes a village to provide aging residents with a continuing good quality of life and more security in their own homes.
The organization, for county residents 55 and over, is called the Village in Howard, (TVIH), and it coordinates home services as well as social and educational events for its members.

Ellyn M. Loy has seen a number of cases of abuse in her years as a licensed clinical social worker — first at House of Ruth, a shelter for women and children who are victims of domestic violence, and now as director of SAFE: Stop Abuse of Elders.

For Don Hedgepeth of Rancho Mirage, 75 is the new 55 in more ways than one.
A runner for the past 33 years, Hedgepeth has logged more than 25,000 miles and worn out an uncounted number of running shoes.

May 8, 1945 dawned warm and drizzly in Washington, D.C. Unlike the day when cheering conga lines snaked past the White House three months later as victory was declared over Japan, the May day that become known as Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) retained a muted, business-as-usual air in the nation’s capital.